Greenlight Spotlight: Alpha Kimori Episode One

Steam Greenlight is a magical land where anything is possible. Is there a genre or style of game you dearly miss? Chances are someone on Greenlight is looking to bring it back to life. In the case of Alpha Kimori Episode One, Sherman3D is looking to breathe new life into the classic JRPG. In order to do it, though, they need some serious upvoting.

The game takes place 50 years after an alien invasion on Earth, and humans have abandoned and regrouped on the planet of Kimori. There’s a faction of people who want to return to and reclaim Earth (Bidarians), and others who would rather stay on Kimori (Jinrians). Because settling differences in an amicable fashion does not make for a good game, the two groups have waged war against one another. You play as Rick, a Bidarian warrior who falls in love with a Jinrian princess named Yuki. It’s kind of like Romeo and Juliet, except in space.

Like the classic games that inspired it, Alpha Kimori Episode One features turn-based combat. There’s also a party system in place, and the ability to swap out characters as leaders of the pack. If you’re more a lover than a fighter, it’s possible to avoid a lot of battles, as the enemies are visible on the overworld map. As noted in our review, though, skipping too many can put you in a tough situation when you make it to the latter portion of the game.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Alpha Kimori Episode One‘s development saga is that it was created using RPG Maker. In fact, it was the first ever game chosen to ship with the program, as an example of sorts of what it’s capable of. And if such humble origins have you concerned about the quality of the game, it should be noted that all of Alpha Kimori Episode One‘s graphics and resources were custom made.

It’s clear a lot of work went into the game’s visuals. It subscribes to the 16-bit school of design, but many of the characters and assets feature a level of detail you rarely saw in that era. Granted, that was due to technical limitations, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome to see in Alpha Kimori Episode One.

The Alpha Kimori series is intended to be a trilogy, and both episodes 1 and 2 have been released in locations aside from Steam. We fell in love with both entries when they were originally released, so we can’t help but support Episode One‘s quest to arrive on Steam. If you fancy yourself a fan of JRPGs, and have a second to click a button (and of course you do), consider helping the game out!

Greenlight Spotlight is a featured series on Gamezebo that profiles Steam Greenlight candidates that deserve your vote. We’re doing this in the hopes of calling attention to interesting projects that would benefit from distribution on Steam, so please, if a game looks like something you’d want to play, don’t hesitate to lend it your support!